Eat like a local and stay healthy

Carol Pucci, The Seattle Times

I've sipped ayran, a frothy yogurt drink made with water and salt, in the tent of a Kurdish nomad in Turkey; sampled grasshoppers seasoned with chili powder and lime in Mexico; and eaten kimchee stored in a pot buried in the backyard of a host's home in Korea.

Only once in many years of traveling have I become sick enough from food to take the medicine I always carry with me. That was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where I ate at a Western-style private club that served Italian pasta and chicken.

For me, eating is part of the fun and adventure of traveling. Some of my most memorable travel experiences have to do with getting to know people over food and drink.

To stay healthy, I follow advice provided by the travel nurses at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, add a few of my own do's and don'ts, then dive in and eat like a local.

I stick to bottled water, even in hotels that supply filtered water. "You don't know what the filtration system is like," said Group Health travel nurse Michelle Duffy York.

She recommends extra precautions such as carrying a portable sterilizer to plunge into the plastic bottles that might not have been properly sealed.

I'm a street-food fan (if you are, too, you might want to take a look at Lonely Planet's new book, "The World's Best Street Food"), but play it safe by sticking to sweets, such as the unusual treats I found in the Muslim quarter of Xian, China. Eight Treasures was a memorable pudding, a 20-cent disc of sticky rice flavored with dates, sugar, sesame and nuts, cooked in a tiny wooden box, then removed intact and served on a stick.

Don't assume that familiar, Western-style foods are safer than the local fare. My Cambodia experience is an example.

Become a temporary vegetarian. Undercooked or unrefrigerated meat and chicken attract bacteria. I opted for the "veg" side of the menu while traveling for three weeks in India and never got sick.

I follow Group Health's advice to take two Pepto-Bismol tablets (generics are fine) shortly before each meal. The active ingredient, bismuth subsalicylate, coats the insides, explains Group Health's York, preventing bacteria from sticking to the intestine and spreading.